Cyprus Criminalizes Denial of 1915 Armenian Genocide

April 3, 2015 By administrator

Reuters

April 02, 2015 7:09 PM

Speaker Yiannakis Omirou,
historical truths.

NICOSIA—Cyprus on Thursday made it a crime to deny that Ottoman Turks committed genocide against Armenian Turks a century ago, a move likely to rile its old rival Turkey as peace talks on the ethnically split island remain stalled.The Cypriot parliament passed a resolution penalizing denial of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, modifying existing legislation, which required prior conviction by an international court to make denial a crime.

“Today is a historic day,” said Yiannakis Omirou, parliament speaker. “It allows parliament to restore, with unanimous decisions and resolutions, historical truths.”

The east Mediterranean island, split in a Turkish invasion in 1974 after a brief Greek-inspired coup, was one of the first countries worldwide in 1975 to recognize the Armenian killings as genocide. It is commemorated on April 24.

The nature and scale of the killings remain highly contentious. Turkey accepts that many Armenians died in partisan fighting beginning in 1915, but denies that up to 1.5 million were killed and that this constituted an act of genocide, a term used by many Western historians and foreign parliaments.

In a statement, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic said the Cypriot resolution was “null and void to us and not worthy of comment.”

“Those who have tried to exploit the events of 1915 at every opportunity by using base political calculations have not been able to achieve any result until now and won’t do so in the future,” he added.

Armenia accuses the Ottoman authorities at the time of systematically massacring large numbers of Armenians and deporting many more, including women, children, the elderly and infirm, in terrible conditions on so-called death marches.

The issue has long been a source of tension between Turkey and several Western countries, especially the United States and France, both home to large ethnic Armenian diasporas. Cyprus, too, has an Armenian population.

Cyprus has been at loggerheads with Turkey for decades. Its ethnic Greek and Turkish Cypriot populations have lived estranged in the south and north respectively since 1974. Seeds of division were sown earlier when a power-sharing government crumbled amid violence in 1963.

Thursday’s resolution was passed by Greek Cypriot lawmakers, who now make up the island’s only internationally recognized parliament.

Cypriot parliament criminalizes Armenian Genocide denial

March 31, 2015 By administrator

Cypriot lawmakers on Monday, March 30, agreed to amend current legislation, criminalizing the denial of a genocide if the given crime against humanity has been recognized by the House, Cyprus Mail reports.

The matter is fundamentally about the Armenian Genocide, and resurfaced last week due to the upcoming visit of Armenian National Assembly speaker Galust Sahakyan to Cyprus to mark the 100th anniversary of the first genocide of the 20th century.

As it stands, the law states that denial of crimes against humanity and genocide is a criminal offence only where the crime in question has been recognized by irrevocable decision of an international court. Cyprus is among 22 countries that have recognized the Armenian Genocide. However, because the International Criminal Court has not recognized it, thus far denial of the genocide was not a criminal offence here.

House Speaker Yiannakis Omirou was keen to add a clause to the legislation, making genocide denial a criminal offence whether it has been recognized by an international court or by a resolution of the Cyprus parliament, the report says.

Following debate at the House legal affairs committee on Monday, the parties took on board Omirou’s legislative proposal, but with a modification – denial of genocide will constitute a criminal offence only where the House resolution recognizing that genocide was unanimous.

Sources from the ruling DISY party told the Mail that the House may hold an extraordinary session of the plenum on Thursday morning, before the scheduled plenary, to pass the legal amendment.

Sahakyan, due on the island on Wednesday, is on Thursday afternoon scheduled to address the House of Representatives.

While on an official trip to Armenia last November, Omirou appears to have promised his Armenian counterpart that Cyprus would criminalize the denial of the Armenian Genocide, as other countries – Switzerland, Slovakia, Greece – have done.

The same DISY sources, according to Cyprus Mail, dismissed the notion, as reported by daily Simerini, that Omirou and the presidency were at odds over amending the law.

The only reservations the president had was that the government was not consulted on the matter, which pertains to foreign policy.

The sources also refuted media reports that DISY MPs had argued in committee against criminalizing denial because it might anger the Turkish Cypriots and Turkey, particularly at this juncture when peace talks may resume.

Cyprus was the first European country (and the second worldwide, after Uruguay) to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide. On April 24, 1975, Resolution 36 was voted unanimously by the House of Representatives.

Given that decision was unanimous, the criminalization amendment now being proposed should automatically apply to the Armenian Genocide.

Under the law, the denial or “flagrant downgrading” of recognized war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, provided the crime has been recognized by an international court, is punishable by up to five years imprisonment and/or a fine of €10,000.

Parliament of Cyprus drafts bill criminalizing denial of Genocide

March 24, 2015 By administrator

A bill criminalizing denial of the Armenian Genocide has been submitted to the parliament of Cyprus.

According to Hurriyet, the bill criminalizing denial of the Genocide, military crimes and crimes against humanity has been jointly submitted by the republic’s political parties.

Discussion of the bill, timed to the centennial of the Armenian Genocide, is expected to be included in the next week’s parliamentary agenda.

U.S. Ambassador Calls on Turkey to Be ‘Respectful’ over Genocide Centennial

February 10, 2015 By administrator

ANKARA—In an interview on Turkish television on Feb 6, the United States’ Ambassador to Turkey, John Bass, commented on Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide and the Turkish government’s decision to host commemorations of the Battle of Gallipoli on April 24, the same day that Armenians will be commemorating the centennial of the Armenian Genocide.

Speaking about the United States’ position on the Armenian Genocide, Bass said, “I cannot speak to how the events will be characterized in whatever the President or Congress chooses to say on the anniversary, but, I can tell you that our policy hasn’t changed. Our policy is that we believe that a full, frank and just acknowledgement of the facts surrounding those terrible massacres and tragedies in 1915 is in the interest of the citizens of Turkey, it is in the interest of the citizens of Armenia and it is in the interest of the descendants of people who suffered in that period.”

On U.S. participation in commemorations of the Battle of Gallipoli, Bass said, “It is too early to say how we will be represented in Gallipoli. I would say, with respect to the timing of the commemorations, you know there is so much depth of feeling and so much suffering that occurred in 1915 among many populations that, I think, from our perspective, we think that commemorations should occur in a way that allows every community that suffered to commemorate the events in a way and in a manner that is respectful of the dead and that allows them in their own ways to acknowledge that suffering and to commemorate their dead respectfully.”

Gross and deliberate denial of the Armenian genocide is not protected by freedom of expression

January 26, 2015 By administrator

The hearing in this Wednesday, January 28 before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in the case Perincek v. Switzerland will major issue to determine whether the application of the Swiss anti-racist standard in the denial of Armenian genocide is a violation of freedom of expression (art. 10 ECHR). At the time of the commemoration of the centenary of the genocide, the issue is fundamental.

In the first judgment of 17 December 2013, the Court upheld the appeal of Mr. Perincek – convicted in Switzerland by three successive instances of racial discrimination – and held that the conviction of Mr. Perincek by the Swiss courts violated Article 10 of the Convention establishing the right to freedom of expression. The Court has built on the absence of a “general consensus” on the legal definition of genocide of the Armenian experience as well as a pressing social need which could justify the criminalization of Holocaust denial.

To recall, Mr. Perincek visited in 2005 in several cities in Switzerland at the head of an organization called Talaat Pasha Committee (named after the major responsible for the genocide of the Armenians and for that condemned at the time by a military court Turkish) to repeat in public, in six different occasions, that the “Armenian genocide was an international imperialist lie.”

In the past, the European Court had yet clear that the denial of a crime against humanity was one of the worst forms of racial defamation and incitement to hatred (Garaudy v. France).

In this case, since the MEDZ Yeghern was the basis for the definition of legal concepts of crime against first humanity and genocide then, and since the absolute majority of the scientific world as Genocide the extermination of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I, his denial and intentional justification can not be tolerated. In sentencing Mr. Perincek, the Swiss courts have made this plain. The Switzerland-Armenia Association (SAA), which initiated the case in Switzerland by filing a complaint against the applicant was admitted by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights to intervene in this case. On this occasion, the ASA was first wished to recall the need to protect the victims of crime perpetrated in 1915 by the Ottoman Empire. These victims have been forgotten by the Court in its previous judgment.

The ASA then argued that the Swiss courts have carefully examined the case and properly understood the wrongfulness of Mr. Perincek. The ASA is concerned that the Court was substituted for the Swiss courts, contradicting and putting the particular question the consensus on the qualification of the massacres of 1915.

Finally, the ASA announced that it had been deeply wounded by some passages in the judgment of 17 December 2013 and in particular in that the Court has made a distinction between genocide, which leads to a difference in treatment between unhappy victims of genocide.

While the centennial of the Armenian Genocide will be commemorated this year, the ASA hopes that the European Court of Human Rights be no mistake about the will of Mr. Perincek and confirmed in the present case, the wrongfulness of his remarks.

Additional Information:

The following people – accompanied by the Board of the SAA before the Court, Mr. Frédéric Krenc (+32/2/5331085) – will be present at the hearing on 28 January 2015.

Andreas Dreisiebner (German, English) – President of the ASA – Tel. : + 4179 671 8619

Mr. Sarkis Shahinian (French, German, Italian, English) – Honorary President of the ASA – Tel. : + 4176 399 1625

Monday, January 26, 2015,
Jean Eckian © armenews.com

Erdogan, Turkey will fight “actively” qualification Armenian Genocide

January 7, 2015 By administrator

Ankara, (AFP) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed on Tuesday to oppose “actively” in any campaign for recognition by Turkey on genocidal massacres of Armenians in 1915, whose centenary is celebrated this year.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and institutions will actively fight these allegations,” Erdogan said during a speech to the Turkish ambassadors gathered in Ankara.

One session of the annual conference of Turkish ambassadors is precisely on the definition of a strategy against Armenia’s efforts and the Armenian diaspora, who advocate that Ankara recognize genocide.

Turkey has so far always refused to admit any planned disposal, citing the massacre by the Ottoman Empire some 500,000 Armenians who had sided with his enemy Russia in fighting or because of famines .

In April, Mr Erdogan, when he was prime minister, had offered unprecedented condolences for the massacres of Armenians (1.5 million Armenians and 500,000 according as Turks), citing a “joint pain”.

Turkey and neighboring Armenia, which does not have diplomatic relations, signed in 2009 called protocols in Zurich to normalize their relations, but five years later these texts have still not been approved by their parliaments.

Armenia will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the genocide on April 24, when, in 1915, hundreds of Armenians were arrested and later massacred in Constantinople, the ancient Istanbul, marking the beginning of the massacres.

USC to host event on ‘Denial of State Violence’ “Fatma Müge Göçek, Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies”

October 31, 2014 By administrator

Fatma Müge Göçek, Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan, will be the guest of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies on Wednesday, Nov 5, MassisPost reports.

Entitled “What Happened and Why – The Denial of State Violence,” Dr. Göçek will speak about the centuries of collective violence against the Armenians, beginning in the Ottoman period and continuing through the republican period, until today. USC Professor of Religious Studies, Dr. Donald Miller, who is also Executive Director of USC’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture, will be guiding the discussion.

Dr. Göçek, a Turkish-born historical sociologist, has focused on the comparative analysis of history, politics and gender in the first and third worlds. She has analyzed the impact of processes such as development, nationalism, religious movements and collective violence on minorities. Her most recent book is an Oxford University Press publication called The Denial of Violence. Her other books include Constructions of Nationalism in the Middle East (SUNY Press, 2002), The Transformation of Turkey: Redefining State and Society from the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Era (I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2011), and A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire (Oxford University Press, 2011 co-edited with Ronald Grigor Suny and Norman Naimark.)

Dr. Donald Miller is a professor of religion and sociology. He has conducted extensive research on religion and social change, religion and community organizing, social ethics, immigrant religious communities in Los Angeles, and the Armenian and Rwandan genocides. He heads the USC Center on Religion and Civic Culture.

Salpi Ghazarian, the director of the USC Institute of Armenian Studies, said, “We invite the community to join us for this program at the USC campus. This is not a lecture. It’s a conversation between two people who have spent many years studying why and how states inflict violence on their own peoples. Dr. Göçek’s research goes on to try to decipher the roots of the denial that has followed, specifically in the case of state violence against the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. This is critical to understanding the present and future state of Armenian-Turkish relations.”

MassisPost. What Happened and Why – The Denial of State Violence

Turkish history textbooks for primary school, Denial to the school by Taner Akcam

October 20, 2014 By administrator

Taner Akcam

I had the opportunity to analyze the new history textbooks for primary school, middle school and high school. I limited my review everything about the Armenian question, but I really invite other journalists or researchers to do likewise on everything related to other Christians, Jews and Alevis. This would be very useful. In a context where the AKP to lay the foundations for a “new Turkey” campaign slogan of President Erdogan, it was interesting to see what the designers thought the Armenians of this “new Turkey.” We learn a lot in those history books about how these “visionaries” intend shape new generations. The message is very clear: it is to educate young people as part of a complotiste vision of society and the world, like the theories developed by the Ergenekon network [Turkish mafia network].

It is thus explained to young students in their final year of primary school that Turkey faces three major threats. The Armenian issue is presented as the first of these threats, then comes terrorism and finally the Christian missionaries, who pose a serious threat to national security! You read that right. The designers of the new Turkey share with the supporters of Ergenekon network an idea of threats to the nation that led to the murder of Hrant Dink [intellectual Istanbul Armenian killed in 2007] and that of three Christian missionaries in Malatya the same year [they had been slain; their alleged killers were released this year]. That is what these “innovators” want to pass on to our children. Armenians are portrayed in these books as separatist manipulated by foreign powers who attack the Turks and Muslims who are desperate to impose their lie about the genocide. Nothing new in that speech, which is only a repetition of the arguments of the most famous Turkish denialists.

“Events Armenian” .. An important place is given to the genocide, designated as the “Armenian events of 1915” in the history book for middle school handbook. It repeats all the cliches about “Armenians collaborated with the Russians,” the Armenian organizations “who fomented uprisings in Anatolia” and did not hesitate to “kill those of their compatriots who did not want to follow up. “ Armenians, “who were ordered to kill their Turkish neighbors took advantage of the absence of men gone to the front to attack the defenseless Turkish villages and massacring the population there, sparing the children.” According to these books, they do not stay there and “hit the Ottoman army in the back by sabotaging their supply lines, destroying roads and bridges.” “By spying on behalf of Russia and causing unrest in the cities, they also facilitated the occupation [of eastern Anatolia] Russia.” When you read these sentences, we must have in mind that, even if they are not very numerous, there are still Armenians in Turkey and that their children will also have to read such allegations to school [including the Armenian community schools] ! You can still read this manual a thesis about which we do not know whether to laugh or cry, that “the deportation of Armenians was organized to ensure their safety.” But who then threatened? The Armenians of course, that “thus killing all of them who refused to participate in the uprising.” On the figures, these books evoke 300,000 Armenians died “because of war and disease,” while Armenians “massacred 600,000 Turks and 500,000 others forced to leave their homes” … And do s’ Is it here that in 1915 [the date of the Armenian genocide]. What we can conclude is that, to embody a paradise, it seems necessary to first define hell. Those who claim to have a vision [the AKP] and feel the need to define the type of enemy that would prevent the implementation of this vision. It must therefore be noted in reading these books, that Armenians are enemies of the “new Turkey.”

Taner Akcam

Posted on September 17

Taraf (excerpts) Istanbul